Introduction: Research Handbook on the Sociology of International Law

Hebrew University of Jerusalem International Law Forum Working Series, 2018

19 Pages Posted: 13 Feb 2020

See all articles by Moshe Hirsch

Moshe Hirsch

Hebrew University of Jerusalem - Faculty of Law

Andrew Lang

University of Edinburgh - School of Law

Date Written: 2018

Abstract

The appearance of this Research Handbook reflects the editors' view that we may be in the middle of a particularly fertile, and potentially important, period of creative borrowing between the disciplines of international law and sociology. International lawyers who draw on diverse traditions of social thought have found them useful in creating spaces in which the constraints of what has become orthodox international legal thinking have been consciously cast off in pursuit of new kinds of thinking, more suitable for the rapidly transforming social and political landscape where contemporary international lawyering is done. The contributors to the Research Handbook situate their interventions within a particular tradition of sociological or social theoretical thinking, and then explain how and why this tradition is useful in thinking about some contemporary development, or problem, within the domain of international law and governance. Following a brief introduction, the chapter outlines some major theoretical conversations within sociology which will help to locate the following contributions. This discussion highlights core approaches which are most commonly identified in sociological literature (structural- functionalism, symbolic- interactionism, and social conflict perspectives); early engagements between international law and sociology (mainly the writings of Max Huber and Julius Stone); and more recent engagements between international law and social thought, underlining attempts to understand the nature, dynamics, and stakes of globalization as it relates to law, as well as interactions between poststructuralist social theory and contemporary international law.

Keywords: sociology, international law, international legal theory, sociology of law, philosophy of international law

Suggested Citation

Hirsch, Moshe and Lang, Andrew, Introduction: Research Handbook on the Sociology of International Law (2018). Hebrew University of Jerusalem International Law Forum Working Series, 2018, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3522073 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3522073

Moshe Hirsch (Contact Author)

Hebrew University of Jerusalem - Faculty of Law ( email )

Mount Scopus
Mount Scopus, IL 91905
Israel

Andrew Lang

University of Edinburgh - School of Law ( email )

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